"The Psychology of World War III" with Dr Nicholas Wright
Bluffing, double-crossing, predicting, testing your enemy. The mind games of international relations are wildly complex. And at the end of the day, the outcome of the next major conflict will be decided not by military questions but by psychological ones.
Why did France lose to the Nazis, despite having more tanks, troops, and guns? How did Ukraine stand firm against Russia? Why was Winston Churchill right and Neville Chamberlain wrong? How do you know if you can trust an ally? Will the logic of nuclear mutually-assured destruction hold? How will technology shape the future of war? What will happen if China goes for Taiwan?
In an era of asymmetric warfare, of killer drones and bunker-busting bombs, it’s more important than ever to tease out the psychological games of conflict.
Dr Nicholas Wright is a leading neuroscientist who advises the Pentagon and the UK Cabinet Office on psychological strategy. His new book is Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain. He joins Josh to explain how all wars come down to psychology, to prediction, to second-guessing, to mental games... and how we in the West might master them.
Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
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Josh vs The News: Bezos' Trump Bribe, Banning Refugees, & is Hegseth a War Criminal?
Josh takes a look at the week’s news, and tries to make sense of it. A
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"The Secret Economic History of the World" with Pulitzer finalist Sven Beckert
Is faith in our economic system cracking up?
From Mayor Mamdani's win to Elon's trillion-dollar payday, from Instagram infuluencers embracing communism to Bernie and AOC, from Trump's tariffs to Chinese communism. Critiques abound of the neoliberal order that has dominated the past half century.
But those assumptions - not just about policies, like free trade and low taxes, but about the very structure of we live our lives, how we produce stuff, and get stuff; assumptions like the existence of money and markets and wages - are not inescapable facts of reality. They evolved, over the course of the last thousand years. They made us very rich. And they could've been otherwise.
Professor Sven Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard University and one of the world's leading historians of capitalism. He's not a free-market cheerleader, not a libertarian economist defending unfettered capitalism. He's a historian who studies how, in the real world, violence, coercion and empire were foundational to capitalism's rise... but how capitalism remains the indispensable system that made you richer than most people who ever lived.
Beckert got his PhD in history from Columbia University and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. His new book is Capitalism: A Global History, and he joined Josh to shed light on what capitalism is, how it came about, and how might we re-anchor capitalism in moral and ecological limits... without extinguishing the creativity that has made it the most productive engine of all time.
Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
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Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Refugees, Fossil Fuels & the fate of Western Civilisation
Tony Abbott was the 28th Prime Minister of Australia. Here, he visits Josh for an Uncomfortable Conversation about his government’s policy of “turning back” asylum-seeker boats; about climate change (as PM, he abolished Australia’s short-lived tax on carbon); and about his view of the historical treatment of First Nations Australians.
Josh and Tony wrestle with the challenges facing the U.K. and the U.S. from right-wing populism, illegal immigration, multiculturalism, and the fate of Western democracy.
His new book is “Australia: A History“.
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"Obama, Trump & the Great American Contradiction" with Pulitzer-Prize-winner Paul Starr
The difference between America's last two consequential presidents (sorry, Joe) couldn't be starker. How did the same country - sometimes even the same voters - endorse an urbane, professorial, hopey-changey Black man and a foul-mouthed, regressive clown? Is there some deep American contradiction that explains them both?
That's the claim of Paul Starr, a Pulitzer-winner who co-founded the iconic magazine The American Prospect. He worked in the Clinton administration and is now a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.
Starr's new book is "American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now". He joined Josh to explain how, from MLK to Nixon to Gingrich to NAFTA to tariffs to wokeness, we find ourselves in the latest cycle of a grand American battle between revenge, fear and freedom.
Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
The world has never been more connected. Yet never more divided. We yell at each other from inside our echo chambers. But change doesn’t happen inside an echo chamber. It’s time to get out, to stretch our legs, to step on some land mines. It's time to have an uncomfortable conversation with Josh Szeps.
A DM Podcast
UK